Silverback Films in association with Industrial Light and Magic & Amblin Television for Netflix (2023)
This is the story of life’s epic, four billion-year journey on Earth, told through its ruling dynasties, the underdogs who defied the odds to survive, and the cataclysmic events that reshaped it. This is the story of Life On Our Planet.
Life on Our Planet is the story of life’s epic battle to conquer and survive on planet Earth. The story of life on earth is told through a mix of live action natural history and visual effects scenes. I worked as Series Visual Effects Director of Photography and contributed to all VFX across every episode. My role began with planning the scenes, developing the creatures and creating scenes which were both entertaining and educational. I worked on Pre-Vis using model creatures to block out scenes and storyboarding each scene. I then filmed the backplates for each scene (apart from the underwater scenes in episode 2) and then worked with the teams at Silverback, Amblin and ILM to block out the animation and through the entire process right through to final anim and the offline edits. I also shot several natural history sequences for the series. In total I worked on over 40 sequences across the series.
Narrated by Morgan Freeman
Directors: Adam Chapman, Sophie Lanfear, Gisle Sverdrup, Barny Revell & Nick Jordan
VFX Supervisor: Jonathan Privett
VFX DoP: Jamie McPherson
Series Producers: Dan Tapster, Keith Scholey and Alastair Fothergill
Executive Producer: Steven Spielberg
Music by Lorne Balfe
Episode 1: The Rules of Life
I filmed the cold open featuring two smilodon and a terrorbird. I also filmed the terror bird dance scene and smilodon crashing the party. I also filmed the maiasaura nesting colony scene and the T.rex hunting triceratops sequence. I worked on the volcano scenes and the episode also features montages of many of the VFX sequences I filmed.
Produced by Adam Chapman, Edited by Andy Netley
Episode 2: The First Frontier
I worked on all VFX for the episode from story and character inception through to final animation. This episode features trilobites, anomalocarus, cameroceras and dunkleosteus. I filmed the flash forward ending featuring gorgonipsid and scutosaurs.
Produced by Gisle Sverdrup, Edited by Rob Davies
Episode 3: Invaders of Land
I filmed the cold open with a gorgonopside stalking a herd of scutosaurs. I also filmed the arthopleura sequence and the macro introduction to that scene. I filmed the dragonflies and the fishpond scenes. aka strepsodus meets anthracosaurus. I filmed the frogs hunting dragonflies and the gorgonosid hunting scutosaurs. I also worked on the volcanic eruptions, barren earth and floods. I also filmed the flash forward featuring lystrosaurus.
Produced by Sophie Lanfear, Edited by Rupert Troskie
Episode 4: In Cold Blood
I filmed the cold open featuring lystrosaur. I also worked on the barren earth scenes. I filmed the lystrosaur sequence, the salt flat lizards, erythrosuchus meets lystro scene and the komodo dragon sequence. All of these sequences were filmed with my cine-buggy (see behind the scenes and kit hire for details of the rig). We got very lucky with the komodo dragons as although due to lockdown happening within the first week of the shoot we managed to capture behaviour no one had ever filmed before – a successful hunt by komodo dragons on a buffalo calf. I also worked as VFX consultant on the turtles vs pterosaurs and mosasaur scenes. I filmed the plateosaur nest scene and the final flash forward featuring allosaurus chasing diplodocus.
Produced by Barny Revill, Edited by Alex Boyle
Episode 5: In the Shadow of Giants
I filmed the diplodocus and allosaur sequence. We wanted to create a scene which felt had elements of classic horror… the baby diplodocus hiding during a storm with the allosaurus monster stalking them. Also I just loved the idea of baby diplodocus being miniature adults! I also worked on the barren earth and volcano scenes. I filmed the deinonychus hunt sequence. I also filmed the edmontosaur scene. And finally I filmed the T.rex dance off!
Produced by Barny Revill, Edited by Sam Rogers
Episode 6: Out of the Ashes
I filmed the post KT cold open and elements for the KT event sequence. I filmed the anchiornis vs sinoraptor sequence, the tracking shots of flamingos and terror bird hunt sequence and the flash forward featuring smilodon.
Produced by Nick Jordan, Edited by Dave Pearce
Episode 7: Inheriting the Earth
I filmed the cold open featuring megacerops. I also worked on the life in the dark scene. I filmed the coatis (again using the cine-buggy to immerse the viewers in their world). I also filmed the megacerops fight clubs scene. I was VFX consultant from story and character inception through to final animation for the maicetus vs otodus sequence. I also filmed the flash forward of the dawn of sapiens in the ice age.
Produced by Adam Chapman, Edited by Dave Pearce
Episode 8: Age of Ice and Fire
I filmed the cold open of the cave lions entering the cave (with the nod to the rise of humans). I filmed the wolves and bison hunt sequence in Yellowstone. I also filmed the cave lions hunting mammoths. I worked on the great ice melt scene and the danube delta scenes. I filmed the humans hunting bison scene and worked on the anthropocene ending the film shooting elements like the mega mines in Greece and working on the concept and style of this final scene.
Produced by Sophie Lanfear, Edited by Nigel Buck